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It cannot reasonably be thought that the notion of unity is
derived from the object since this is physical- man, animal, even
stone, a presentation of that order is something very different
from unity [which must be a thing of the Intellectual]; if that
presentation were unity, the mind could never affirm unity unless
of that given thing, man, for example.
Then again, just as in the case of "On the right" or other such
affirmation of relation, the mind does not affirm in some caprice
but from observation of contrasted position, so here it affirms
unity in virtue of perceiving something real; assuredly the
assertion of unity is not a bare attitude towards something
non-existent. It is not enough that a thing be alone and be
itself and not something else: and that very "something else"
tells of another unity. Besides Otherness and Difference are
later; unless the mind has first rested upon unity it cannot
affirm Otherness or Difference; when it affirms Aloneness it
affirms unity-with-aloneness; thus unity is presupposed in
Aloneness.
Besides, that in us which asserts unity of some object is first a
unity, itself; and the object is a unity before any outside
affirmation or conception.
A thing must be either one thing or more than one, manifold: and
if there is to be a manifold there must be a precedent unity. To
talk of a manifold is to talk of what has something added to
unity; to think of an army is to think of a multitude under arms
and brought to unity. In refusing to allow the manifold to remain
manifold, the mind makes the truth clear; it draws a separate
many into one, either supplying a unity not present or keen to
perceive the unity brought about by the ordering of the parts; in
an army, even, the unity is not a fiction but as real as that of
a building erected from many stones, though of course the unity
of the house is more compact.
If, then, unity is more pronounced in the continuous, and more
again where there is no separation by part, this is clearly
because there exists, in real existence, something which is a
Nature or Principle of Unity. There cannot be a greater and less
in the non-existent: as we predicate Substance of everything in
sense, but predicate it also of the Intellectual order and more
strictly there- since we hold that the greater and more sovereign
substantiality belongs to the Real Beings and that Being is more
marked in Substance, even sensible Substance, than in the other
Kinds- so, finding unity to exhibit degree of more and less,
differing in sense-things as well as in the Intellectual, we must
similarly admit that Unity exists under all forms though still by
reference, only, to that primal Unity.
As Substance and Real Being, despite the participation of the
sensible, are still of the Intellectual and not the sensible
order, so too the unity observed present in things of sense by
participation remains still an Intellectual and to be grasped by
an Intellectual Act. The mind, from a thing present to it, comes
to knowledge of something else, a thing not presented; that is,
it has a prior knowledge. By this prior knowledge it recognises
Being in a particular being; similarly when a thing is one it can
affirm unity as it can affirm also duality and multiplicity.
It is impossible to name or conceive anything not making one or
two or some number; equally impossible that the thing should not
exist without which nothing can possibly be named or conceived;
impossible to deny the reality of that whose existence is a
necessary condition of naming or affirming anything; what is a
first need, universally, to the formation of every concept and
every proposition must exist before reasoning and thinking; only
as an existent can it be cited to account for the stirring of
thought. If Unity is necessary to the substantial existence of
all that really is- and nothing exists which is not one- Unity
must precede Reality and be its author. It is therefore, an
existent Unity, not an existent that develops Unity; considered
as Being-with-Unity it would be a manifold, whereas in the pure
Unity there is no Being save in so far as Unity attends to
producing it. As regards the word "This," it is nat a bare word;
it affirms an indicated existence without using the name, it
tells of a certain presence, whether a substance or some other
existent; any This must be significant; it is no attitude of the
mind applying itself to a non-existent; the This shows a thing
present, as much as if we used the strict name of the object.
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